Dog Tag
by HappyLeifEricsonDay
Summary: A mysterious patient with a cryptic dog tag puzzles a doctor after a hospital ghost attack. (Sequel now up: "Check-Ups")
1. Chapter 1

Okay now I wasn't actually sure what category to file this under. It's just fun Danny stuff. :D It's a mystery that's not really a mystery, an adventure that's not really an adventure. Just read it okay. There will probably be only 2 chapters, so I'll throw up the second half as soon as I'm done with it.

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**Chapter One**

x - x - x

_'If for some reason you're reading this, then these are probably the least of my medical worries, so let me clear any time-wasting confusion.'_

No kidding, David thought dryly, humorlessly. There was nothing funny about this at all.

_'Blood is red AND green? That's normal, unless it's leaking out of me._

_45 bmp avg / 82 degrees avg_

_That's right. No, your equipment isn't broken.'_

Kid had some messed up sense of humor. Was this his idea of a joke? David dropped the small silver dog tag onto the countertop next to the patient's cot, the rattle of the chain echoing strangely in the silent room. The silence pressed in all around him tangibly. It had been such a loud, loud night that now that the hospital was silent it felt wrong, like at any minute everything was going to start exploding again.

x – x – x

Earlier that evening David had been called in to work the graveyard. Not uncommon, but that didn't mean he was any less annoyed. The night had been like any other in the ER, really. A couple college kids with alcohol poisoning, a couple junkies faking pain and looking for a fix, a couple kids with ear infections and stomach viruses. One kid who broke her arm falling down the stairs. Nothing David hadn't seen before.

Then, sometime after one in the morning, some guy had wandered into the lobby, cradling a bloody bandage against the side of his forehead. David wasn't there but Tina from the front desk had told him all about it. It really was a dramatic scene, even for Amity Park where drama happened around every corner these days. Tina said he was stammering about ghosts- typical. All major medical emergencies had to do with the stupid ghost attacks these days. It was a never ending source of frustration for the staff at Amity Northwest Hospital.

After the first guy, a wave of citizens came pouring in. Over twenty of them, all injured. All spewing a story about a purple ghost. None of them were beat up too badly – it was mostly just surface stuff. One man had a shard of glass stuck into his shoulder though. David was glad he didn't have to see that one in person. He couldn't help but feel that white-hot fury he always felt whenever this happened, whenever there was a ghost attack that went too far. Of course he could always move away from Amity Park, forget about this place. But that wouldn't solve the problem. So he here stayed. Another day, another dollar.

As the patients were helped back in the order of most severe trauma, he had the feeling this night was going to be a long one.

As for the first guy, they had rushed him back to treat whatever head trauma he had attained, and found that it was really only a shallow cut on his forehead. Which was why all the doctors were baffled when he slipped into a coma fifteen minutes after his arrival. David had been in there for that part, since he himself had been assigned to the guy. Chris, the citizen had called himself, before falling into a coma. He'd seemed perfectly fine up until that point, and they could not seem to pinpoint any damage or any actual physical harm besides the small laceration on his face. His vitals came up fine, his scans came back negative. For all intents and purposes he was a healthy young man, probably in his twenties. So why wouldn't he wake up?

It was as David stood pondering his stats at Chris's bedside that the first explosion happened.

It sounded like someone had loosed a grenade in the front lobby. It was deafening and shook the walls and floor, sending David reeling into the blinking monitor by Chris's bed.

When he rushed into the hall he saw his fellow staff looking around as widely as he was, trying to figure out what happened. There was another shudder, smaller, that rippled through the floor, destabilizing everyone's balance.

David found himself sprinting down the hallway toward the lobby, toward the sound. God only knew why he was going _toward _the sound. He reached the giant double doors and made to punch in his key to unlock them, but at that moment something hit the doors like a train, crashing through them, splintering them like they were made of paper. He was lucky he'd been up against the wall or he'd have been flattened. Something was stirring amongst the shattered remains of the wooden doors. The thing sat up, no the person – or uh, the _ghost_ sat up, rubbing his head. David blinked at him in shock, his hand still frozen on the number pad.

The ghost looked around, glassy-eyed, like he'd forgotten where he was for a moment. His glowing eyes found David's eyes, and David the doctor found himself in a staring match with Danny Phantom, Amity Park's most infamous ghost. For a second, everything was silent.

The moment was short lived, because an ear-splitting screech rent through the air.

"Can't a guy get a half-time?" Phantom muttered, rubbing his head again, as an enormous purple glob began oozing through the wide empty door frame. David was hit with a wall of smell that resembled sewage, or a landfill. He tripped over his own feet trying to back away, his heart ricocheting off the inside of his ribcage in terror. He saw blasts of green light lighting up the hallways as he scrambled to his feet to run away, to run and evacuate the patients from the nearby rooms, to warn all the doctors-

Another ear-busting shriek pierced the hallways. He could hear Phantom's low voice shouting back at the creature, the ghost, whatever the hell that thing was. David didn't know and didn't care whether Phantom was good or evil. Most people in this city seemed so caught up in that. Formalities. David knew plenty of doctors that were complete shitheads, definitely going to hell. All he cared about was that Phantom _saved_ people, and deeds spoke louder than words in David's opinion. And right now he hoped Phantom's deed was to get that purple demon thing the _hell_ out of his ER.

They had been relocating the patients' beds hastily out of that hall to the next wing, moving as fast as proper procedure could allow. The patients who weren't bed ridden had run away all on their own. All the while there were terrifying thunderous noises coming from that main hall, so very close to where they were. David found himself praying that no patients got caught in the crossfire, found himself thankful that there was no second floor in this particular wing of the hospital to collapse in on the first.

Nurses were running rounds on the patients, making sure IVs were still hooked up properly, making sure everyone was just okay when David came jogging in, carting yet another patient on a bed. He left the bed by the inner door and was turning around to go look for more people when the second major explosion happened. It was much, much bigger than the first. David felt his stomach drop out through his feet. He was sure there were still people in that section of the hospital. Some patients maybe, some doctors, nurses. No, no, no.

And for the second time that night, he found that he was running _toward_ the explosion, like some sort of idiot with some sort of death wish. When he rounded the corner to the main hall, hoping to not come face to face with that blob of purple mucous, he saw what the source of the sound had been. This whole section of the ER had completely collapsed. The roof had come down in so many places. There seemed to be purple goo splayed out on every surface. He could no longer even make out the doorframe that had been here before, leading to the lobby. He could see straight through the shattered wall into the destroyed lobby, the flattened outer wall, and across the street to the gas station and the cloudy night sky.

Other than the shuffling sounds of settling rubble, the lobby, or what remained of it, had fallen eerily quiet. Where did the ghost go? Where did Phantom go? Well wherever they were, it wasn't here, and David had patients and coworkers to think about so he forced himself to snap out of it. More uninjured coworkers joined him as he searched frantically for people in the rubble. The settling dust and smoke choked him and he knew his wife was going to lay it into him for not stopping to put on a face mask. There were a few nurses, one or two patients. Thankfully nobody had been killed. Miraculously. Everyone still waiting in the lobby appeared to have run out of the hospital when the fight first broke out. Two of the nurses had been trying to coax a senile man out of his room and they had hidden under the bed when the roof collapsed in, which had saved them. He found a little girl hiding in the bathroom in the lobby – she didn't know where her family had gone.

As he was leading the little girl back towards the back wing, away from the unstable rubble, he heard Will, one of his favorite coworkers, swear loudly.

"Shit! David, get over here!" David passed the trembling girl off to a female nurse (probably better anyways) and ran over to Will, who was desparately trying to lift a portion of the collapsed wall next to the front desk in the lobby. "Help me out, David! There's a guy under here!"

David threw all his weight into lifting the cracked levels of drywall, which were being weighed down by a section of collapsed roof as well. They finally shoved it off to the side, revealing a crumpled figure on the tile floor. "Jesus," David said softly, as he and Will attempted to lay the man out flat, coughing against the thick cloud of dust kicked up by the settling wall.

He looked like he'd gotten the living shit beaten out of him, like some gang had jumped him. There was a massive bruise forming under his left eye, a huge cut running down the side of his neck. His black hair was matted and messy and caked with dusty rubble. But that wasn't the worst of it. His blue shirt was stuck to his chest in a sickening way, a huge dark spot pooling under the fabric. When David pulled the shirt up gingerly his breath hitched, seeing that there was a laceration about a foot long stretching from his collarbone down to the left side of his ribcage. It only registered on the subconscious level that the guy's shirt was for some reason uncut. More bruises and smaller cuts decorated his chest and his arms as well, and David was willing to bet once his jeans were off they'd see the same thing on his legs. The man was twenty years old, tops. David wanted to think '_Poor kid,' _but he didn't let himself think that when there was a chance to save someone.

So they were rushing the man back, carrying him away to where everyone else was.

And they were quarantining him in a separate room, nurses speaking outside the mystery man's door in hushed voices. A brunette nurse stopped David as he was leaving the patient's room and asked if it was true, if they found a victim of the ghost attack in the lobby that was bleeding _green_.

David didn't answer her. He went back to the lobby, trying to find if this guy had ever been a patient at all. But he wasn't registered, not even on the waiting list in the lobby. Had he been here with someone waiting? Family, a friend? Did he get attacked by that purple ghost?

He went back to his new patient's room. The man was still out cold.

And David forgot about the purple ghost and Danny Phantom. For a little while, that was.

x – x – x

David was frowning at the sleeping patient, lost in thought, when Will came sauntering in.

"Staring at him won't wake him up," Will joked.

"No, I suppose not," he admitted, turning away and tossing his clipboard unceremoniously onto the counter.

"You find out anything in the lobby? Was he registered?"

"I don't know," David shrugged. Everyone had been accounted for, except for this mystery guy. There weren't any patients missing, but somehow they'd obtained an extra patient. Bizarre. He could only think that some thoughtless family or friend had left him behind when they fled the lobby. "But take a look at this," David offered, picking up the silver chain he'd just thrown on the counter.

"Heh, a dog tag?" Will laughed, taking it. "That's pretty damn useful."

"Not really," David sighed, "It doesn't say who he is at all."

David waited as Will read the cryptic message engraved in tiny italic letters on the dog tag.

"Well then," was all he said, handing it back to David.

"I know. I thought it was some kind of stupid joke. But what with the green blood- look here, I checked all his vitals. Bpm was _forty,_ Will. And his temperature? This guy should be a freaking popsicle. He should be hypothermic. Dead. He's a whopping seventy nine degrees Fahrenheit." David let that sink in, watching Will's eyes bug out of his head.

"And he's-"

"Yeah, he's very much alive. Though his breaths are coming in at only eight per minute."

Will ran his hand through his curly hair, running it down his face, running it back through his hair. "What are we supposed to do with this? I don't know a thing about ghosts, and it's obvious this kid got attacked by that ghost or something."

"I'm not so sure about that," David responded, turning the dog tag over in his fingers. "Maybe he _was _attacked, but that doesn't explain these freaky vitals. Because how could that explain why was he wearing this?"

Will could only responded with a very frazzled shrug of the shoulders. It's not like David had expected him to know the answer anyway.

He stared at the boy's sleeping face. He looked so haunted. There were circles as deep as wells under his eyes. He might as well have been hit by a train, because that's what he looked like.

After Will's short visit nobody else came by the room to check on the mystery patient, or on David. Everyone else was so busy trying to bring some order back to the hospital. Most of the patients were slowly being moved to a different wing of the hospital entirely, out of the ER building, which was separated from the next wing (oncology) by a vast courtyard. It happened slowly, due to the separation of the buildings, but nobody ever came for mystery patient. He supposed it was because the mystery man still wasn't even registered – he wasn't even officially a patient. But David suspected it had something to do with the flying whispers of green blood. Everyone had seen it when they'd carried the man back here. Nobody wanted to contract some scary ghost illness, especially since that outbreak years back at the local high school, where a bunch of students had all caught some damaging ghostly bug.

A flood of doctors from the other side of the hospital had been pouring in to help though, along with many who were called in from their nights off. So David felt assured in the fact that he was not needed, and he stayed here in this patient's room, waiting for some sign that the Mystery Man was going to wake up.

If he had had his phone or his iPod or a book, or anything to pass the time, he might not have noticed. He would have been fiddling away playing Tetris or texting his wife to assure her he was fine (since this was probably on every news channel right now). But since he had nothing to do, he was slouched in a chair right next to Mystery Man's bed, and his eyes kept wandering from the boring unlabeled cupboards back to the man in the bed. He was examining the small cuts on his arms when he noticed. The ones that had been so small they hadn't warranted bandaging, like his other major wounds.

As David looked at them, he realized that slowly, but surely, they were healing.

His eyes widened, but he knew he wasn't wrong. Just ten minutes ago that cut there on his elbow had curled around the curve of his elbow perfectly. Now though, it was much, much smaller. Too much smaller to go unnoticed. And even as he focused in on it, watching it for five whole minutes, he saw with painstaking clarity that it was actively growing smaller. Now it was about half the size it had been when they'd first brought him back and bandaged him up.

_What the actual fuck._

David rose from his chair robotically, his jaw hanging open. Living in Amity Park you got to see a lot of things folks didn't normally see – things like ghosts and all the strange occurrences that came along with them. But never in all his years as a doctor had he seen anything as astounding, or disturbing, as what was taking place on this man's skin. He almost wanted to un-bandage the big one, that chest wound, see if that was freaking healing itself too. But he thought better of it.

It was at this moment that the guy started to stir in his sleep. It started with a low groan. Then his head turned over and his arms came up slowly, gripping his head. More groans, louder. David stood frozen where he was- realized he was clenching his hand so tightly around the dog tag in his palm that it was digging grooves into his skin. The man was blinking his eyes, looking around the room with a detached and worried look. His eyes fell on David and widened suddenly, like a deer caught in the headlights.


	2. Chapter 2

I'm a liar! There will actually be 3 chapters. Probably. So sue me. (Wait don't actually sue me please).

Anyway enjoy chapter 2 ;)

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**Chapter Two**

x - x - x

"Ohsshit," he mumbled, his words slurred as he tried to wake up. He sat up abruptly, so abruptly that David lunged forward to push him back down against the bed, but the man brushed him off impatiently. "Where am I?"

"You're still in the same hospital," David supplied. "You've only been out for about an hour."

He ran his hand through his messy black hair, causing several tiny pieces of rubble to fall out. He looked at David again, and as his eyes scanned his face calculatingly he actually jumped an inch, his eyes widening further. _"You?"_

_Me?_ "Uh.. what?"

The boy didn't seem to have heard him. He was looking down at his arms, his chest, observing the hospital gown they had thrown on him. This seemed to dismay him. "Oh no." He suddenly became very interested in his hair. He pulled a section of his frazzled black bangs down in front of his face and crossed his eyes trying to look at it. For some reason this seemed to worry him even further. "You- what- what did you see?" he said, pointing at David accusingly.

"I saw a horrifying ghost attack in my hospital," he answered, rather unprofessionally. But it was hard to act professional when something so abnormal was going on. "We pulled you out from under a pile of rubble and we've been trying to figure you out ever since."

For reasons unknown to David this seemed to pacify the man. "Oh," he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "You found me under the rubble." How could that possibly make him feel better? "Rubble.. Wait, what happened to the hospital? Is everyone okay? Did anyone get hurt?"

David couldn't believe he was asking that. "Yeah, _you _got hurt kid. But as far as we know you're the worst injury to stem directly from the collapse of the lobby though, if that makes you feel better." Judging from the sudden relaxation of the look on his face, it did. "Look, let's start again. I'm Dr. Benson and I've been attempting to treat you, but it's proven rather mystifying. Can you tell me your name, son? We need to contact your family. And I'm going to need some answers about some pretty strange readings."

The man had rolled his eyes at the word 'family' but the second word apparently caught his attention. "Readings?"

"First things first. Can you tell me your name?"

He seemed to roll that over in his mind before he slowly said, "Danny. Uh, Danny.. Foley. "

David reached out his hand and dropped the silver dog tag onto Danny's lap. "Okay, Danny. Care to explain this to me?" he asked.

The guy stared at the dog tag for a moment, something like surprise on his face. And then, to David's confusion, he started to laugh. "Oh man," he said, clutching his side. "Laughing's not a good idea." He peeled away part of his hospital gown and looked at the bandage around his midsection. "Ouch," he said casually, and if David hadn't known better he would've thought the man was saying it as a joke.

"The dog tag?" David prodded earnestly.

"Yeah…" He picked it up, folding it into his hand as though hiding it could undo the damage it caused. "I _told_ Jazz that would hurt more than it would help." He sounded more like he was talking to himself than David. "I take it you don't want to hear the answer 'it was just a joke?'"

"I already checked your vitals. By all accounts you _should_ be dead."

"Right." That seemed to amuse Danny. "Sorry about that. You're probably really confused." He seemed almost… sheepish about it. David had thought he'd get answers when the guy woke up, but this was only getting more bewildering. "Anyway, this has been great but I _really_ gotta get going..." Danny swung his legs over and made to get up off the hospital bed.

"Woah there, hold up," David was saying, his hands on Danny's shoulders, keeping him from standing. "You've been through some terrible trauma. You need to stay here, let us treat you. If you tell me what the ghost did to you I'm sure there's a medical solution. There are some very intelligent ghost experts living in this town you know-"

That earned a snort from Danny. "Look, I know you're trying to help but I don't need help."

So, the tough-guy show? That's how it was gonna be? "Look kid, I get it. You're tough. But with that chest wound of yours you shouldn't even be sitting upright right now. You have several bruised ribs, and you've had a fair amount of blood loss-"

But Danny was shaking his head. "I'm really, really fine. I'm a quick healer." He said it with a toothy grin, like a joke. But that statement brought David up short, as he remembered vividly the image of Danny's cut slowly but surely disappearing. He must have been looking at Danny rather strangely for a moment because the boy seemed to grow uncomfortable and suddenly squirmed out from under his grasp, ducking under his arms before David could protest, dodging him rather nimbly for someone who should have been in a lot of pain.

"These my clothes?"

David spun around and saw the kid was already pulling the pile of folded clothes off the countertop, examining them with an air of interest. "Jeez, how am I going to explain these blood stains to Sam…" He trailed off and glanced up at David, like he'd been speaking more to himself than David again. He wondered if this Danny guy did that a lot. He seemed to be living more inside his head than out here.

David knew that everything he stood for as a doctor shouldn't be letting this kid pull his tattered jeans back on, letting him rip off the hospital gown and replace it with his blood spattered shirt. But he was still numbly thinking about those cuts on his arms, how they were ever so subtly growing smaller. What was it about this guy? What was his deal? What did that ghost do to him? He wanted to ask Danny all these questions but he somehow knew he wouldn't get a straight answer. For all he knew Danny wasn't even his real name.

And by all rights, this man shouldn't even be alive. He'd never heard of anything like the vital signs attached to this Danny. Attached to anyone else and they'd be a corpse. So… did normal medical ethical code even apply here? Was Danny even really a patient at this point?

Danny was peeking his head out of their room, glancing down the empty hallway. "Hey uh, where is everybody?"

That snapped David out of his reverie. "Oh, they were all transferred to another ward. They're probably finishing up- I don't think there's many people left in the ER now."

Surprising David yet again, Danny muttered, "Well shit."

"Excuse me?"

But Danny was striding out of the room, not looking back. David stepped to the doorway, watching as Danny looked both ways frantically down the hall. "Now how am I supposed to find him?"

"Find who?"

Danny glanced back at him. "Will you stop doing that?"

"Doing _what_?"

"Listening to everything I say."

Well that wasn't what he was expecting to hear. But if that caught him off guard it wasn't anything compared to what Danny asked next.

He walked back over to David, who was still gaping at Danny blankly like he was going to vanish in a puff of logic. A puff of well-placed logic that would sort out this mysterious anomaly of a guy. "Say, Dr. Benson?" Danny began, as conversationally as if he was about to ask what his favorite color was. "You haven't had any patients admitted tonight that... mysteriously became comatose, have you?"

David's jaw nearly came unhinged. "How did you…"

Danny's eyes seemed to light up with hope. The effect was startling on him. The gaunt face suddenly seemed inviting, friendly. "You have to take me to him."

"But how did you know?"

"He's, uh.. he's my cousin. He has a rare condition. I have to get to him."

"Oh… is _that_ why you were waiting in the lobby? To see Chris?"

He seemed to almost pounce on David's words. "_Yes, _yeah that's exactly what I was doing here. Trying to get in to see Chris. Poor guy."

Poor guy? Chris was in way better condition than Danny was. But David didn't point that out.

"I don't think it's okay for me to take you back there to see him," David said bluntly. "You're a patient yourself, you know."

Danny's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not a patient," he insisted. "I'm fine. I'm already feeling better. I just need to get to Chris. I, uh, I'm the closest family he has." David wasn't sure what to make of Danny's uncertain facial expression. Was it hope he saw there, hope that his plea would work?

Danny may not have known it, but David didn't really need to be convinced Danny was okay to be walking around. He wasn't carrying about like a person with his injuries should be. He was walking normally, only wincing slightly, and breathing just fine. The cuts on his arms were still shrinking.

And for some reason, that David would never understand, he found himself caving in to the pleading look on Danny's face.

Besides, in the confusion that was going on in the rest of the hospital, he was sure no one would recognize Danny and connect him with the unconscious battered man they'd wheeled back, covered in green and red stains. He'd looked half dead. Nothing like the lively man that was staring at David now, holding himself as though he'd never been injured.

And a part of David, that he didn't care to admit to, wanted to give in to Danny for a selfish reason. Because he knew if he denied him the request then this man would be gone; he would leave and David couldn't stop him. And if that happened David would never figure out the mystery beneath his cryptic words, beneath that puzzle of a dog tag of his strange vitals.

David never was a man that could turn down a good mystery. It was part of why he'd become a doctor in the first place.

So that's how the two of them came to be strolling down the main hall together, with Danny wearing David's green polo – his street shirt. The one he'd worn into work today before throwing on his scrubs. After all, he couldn't let Danny wear a bloodstained shirt back into a sterile hospital environment- he wasn't _that_ far gone on his ethics.

They had to cross through the skeleton of the lobby in order to get to the hall that led out to the courtyard and beyond to the rest of the hospital. The dust had finally settled, but as they stepped gingerly through bits of fallen drywall and insulation it stirred up again and caused both men to wheeze into their shirts.

David could still smell the raw sewage reek of that gooey purple behemoth, who seemed to have left bits of its body splattered on every surface. Danny examined these purple stains uncertainly, furrowing his eyebrows each time they passed a goopy dark splatter on the floor. Out of the corner of his eye David thought he saw one of the piles of goop wiggle, but he couldn't have been sure.

After a rough cough Danny managed to say, "Hey, do you remember where you found me?"

What kind of question was that? "Well… yeah. It was over there by the front desk. Or what used to be the front desk."

Danny began to pick his way over there, stepping between fallen cracked concrete from the roof. "Here?" he asked, gesturing to the general area around the desk.

"It was under that section there," David offered, pointing out the wall they'd shoved off his inert body.

David wondered what Danny was doing as he began to tear through the broken bits of drywall, kicking up a cloud of dust as he tossed rubble around, like he was looking for something. Apparently he found it because he suddenly exclaimed, "Aha! Oh.. oh great. That's just great."

David peered around Danny's shoulders and saw he was holding what looked like a beaten up metal thermos. "What's that?" he asked curiously.

"It broke," Danny supplied, dropping the heavily dented container onto the floor. "Which means.. oh yeah. That's not good. Definitely not good." Danny suddenly spun around, scanning the dark room, as if they were about to be attacked.

"What's not good?" David followed Danny's searching gaze around the empty room, the hairs on his neck beginning to stand on end. What was it about this guy that had David so on edge?

Danny turned to him suddenly, fully ignoring David's question. (Was that going to be a recurring theme? Because David was really starting to get annoyed with that.) "We have to go find Chris. Now."

This guy's swift changes of direction kept throwing David off, but he tried to keep up. He had a feeling if he kept on just going with it that maybe it would help him solve this puzzle of a guy. "Uh.. okay." As he led Danny out through the other side of the lobby he couldn't help the feeling that he was really the one following Danny – that he'd been swept along for some crazy rollercoaster ride.

The grassy courtyard itself was eerily calm and empty. It was usually littered with doctors or visitors, but now it was devoid of life. The only sound was the running water of the lit-up fountain in the center. David glanced over his shoulder to make sure Danny was still doing alright – it was hard to allay his doctor instincts, even though he was aware that somehow when it came to Danny he was out of familiar waters. Danny was scanning the courtyard around them, his fists clenched at his sides. He looked like – like he was being hunted or something.

David cleared his throat. "So, are you ever gonna explain that dog tag to me?"

Danny snapped to attention, meeting David's eyes. There was a searching look there, like he was sizing him up. There was a long moment of silence, and David was struck by an odd sense of déjà vu.

"Sorry," Danny began slowly. "I can't do that."

David was dismayed. He'd really been hoping for an answer this time.

"You wouldn't believe me anyway, don't worry." He laughed lightheartedly. "I can assure you I didn't catch a contagious ghost disease though, if that's what you're worried about."

David hadn't really been worried about that at all. He was sure that whatever was going on with this kid had nothing to do with the purple ghost. Because of that dog tag, whatever was going on with him was obviously pre-existing. David had to accept Danny's answer for what it was worth. He sighed and led Danny through to the east wing.

Here there was suddenly an explosion of life. Doctors and nurses were jogging around, clashing pitches of beeping noises everywhere, the low constant murmur of information being traded – it looked and sounded like a real hospital again. The smell here was clean and sterile, which was very welcome after the dust and awful reek of the ghost-ravaged ER. Everyone was so busy no one looked twice at David and Danny as they walked quickly through the hall.

David leaned over the countertop. He didn't know all these nurses by name but he recognized them, and they had nametags anyhow. "Do you guys have information on the patients transferred here from the ER?" he asked hopefully. "Can you help me find one of the patients?"

A black haired nurse (nametag said Amy) answered him. "We have everyone in the system but everything's still chaotic. We're not really sure who's in what room at this point. We're still sorting everything out."

Danny groaned behind him.

"It's very important that I find this patient," David insisted. "He was the first in from the ghost attack before the hospital itself was attacked. He slipped into a coma for unknown reasons, and I was assigned to him. That's why it's urgent that I find him."

"I see. Who's this with you, Dr. Benson?"

Danny answered her himself, leaning forward onto the counter. "I'm family. Also hey, can I use your phone?" He was eyeing the landline next to Amy's computer.

"Oh, yeah that's fine. Here, kid." She set the phone up on the counter and he snatched it up off the hook immediately, punching in a number from memory. "Come on, pick up, pick up.."

David looked at him queerly, but tried to turn his attention back to the other matter at hand. "His name was Chris," he told Amy, "but that's all the info we got before he fell unconscious."

Amy, who had been typing away on her keyboard, snapped her fingers. "Oh! I know who you're talking about. Julia was mentioning him when they were bringing all the transfer patients – she said all the doctors were mystified, because it wasn't head trauma like they thought it was-"

"Yeah, yeah that's the guy!" David exclaimed. "You know where I can find him?"

Meanwhile Danny looked frustrated, and was redialing, still trying to get an answer.

Amy's expression turned from ecstatic to apologetic. "Sorry, no. We just don't have everyone in the system yet. But you can ask Julia, I think she over in room 188 right now, she was working with a patient there last I talked to her. It sounded like she knew where that guy had been taken."

This was turning into a wild goose chase.

"Finally!" Danny exclaimed. "Sam- Sam just calm down. Yes, I'm at the hospital- No, I'm not _in _the hospital, I'm _at _the-" David noticed Danny was eyeing him with a sidelong glance, and he was struck by the feeling that he really wasn't supposed to be listening to this. So he pretended not to hear what Danny was saying, and he thanked Amy for the information. He stepped away from the desk, waiting for Danny to finish up his phone call.

"Yeah I had him, but then then the whole freaking lobby collapsed- no no I'm fine, but when I came to the thermos was broken- no I don't know where he went, look I can't explain all this right now." Danny was eyeing David again and David turned away abruptly, realizing he'd been staring. He thrust his hands in his white coat pockets, examining the ceiling like it was a work of art, trying to make it seem like he really wasn't listening.

"But I have to find this guy in the hospital, I don't have a lot of time. I'll explain later. I gotta go Sam, but do you think you can get down here with the spare? Pronto? … Okay. Don't know where I'll be but I'm sure you'll find me. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Love you too." He hung up and handed the phone back to Amy, who was looking at him I confusion but didn't ask questions.

Danny jogged over to David, who had drifted away to the other side of the counter. "You find out where Chris was?"

"No, we have to go find the nurse who knows where he is."

"Ah," Danny said, irritation lacing his tone.

"So.. what was that all about?" David said, feigning casualty. He had to hide how extremely interested he was in the phone conversation.

Danny seemed distracted. He was scanning the hallways again as they walked toward room 188, like he was just waiting for someone to jump out at them. "Oh, uh nothing."

"Are you _ever_ going to give me a straight answer kid?"

That seemed to amuse him again. "Sorry, heh. It was just my girlfriend. Wanted to.. let her know I was okay. She'll be coming to meet me."

"I see." David didn't mention that that didn't really explain the cryptic phone call at all. What was this 'Sam' bringing a spare of, and why? What had Danny meant when he said 'I had him?'

What did he mean by 'I don't have a lot of time?'

They were rounding a corner when David stepped in something squishy, something that made a nasty sucking noise when he pulled up his shoe. Glancing down at his feet he saw it was a writhing pile of purple goo, glowing slighty. Oh, _gross. _Bits of ghost carcass, here in this part of the hospital too! How did it even get here?

Danny was staring down at it, several emotions crossing his face at once. Flashes of something like annoyance, anger, and uncertainty. His head wheeled around, and David followed his line of sight. Their gazes both fell on the same thing. A mass of viscous purple jelly was oozing out of the vent near the top of the wall in the hallway. Slowly but surely. And beyond that, another glob of purple ghost was heaving like live jello down at the end of the hall. Where did all this come from? Why was it wiggling like it was still alive?

"Now this, this is _really_ not good," Danny said as the purple goo by David's feet attempted to wrap itself around their legs. David froze in shock, by Danny yanked him out of the way. He heard several female screams as a couple nurses turned the corner into this hallway and saw the remnants of ghost.

Was this ghost still _alive?_ Well, alive as loosely defined. Was it still a ghost, were these pieces not the destroyed remains? He watched with fascinated horror as two small purple piles moved together and combined, forming a larger wiggling pile. He was still staring at it mesmerized as Danny pulled his arm hard, dragging him away down the hall, scanning and scanning for a sign that said '188.'


	3. Chapter 3

Final chapter! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I've been toying with an idea for a sequel. May or may not happen. Keep your eyes peeled just in case ;)

* * *

**Chapter Three**

x - x - x

Screams were now echoing loudly down the hallways. David almost didn't want to know what those purple globs of ghost were doing, and he hoped everyone was running away quickly when they saw them. Were they trying to form together again? Because that – that would be very, very bad. Where was Danny Phantom when you needed him anyway?

They burst through the door to room 188 unceremoniously, very unprofessionally. David had a feeling that if everything wasn't so chaotic right now he would be in some serious trouble for all the stunts he'd pulled so far tonight.

The short nurse at Chris's bedside looked terrified.

"Well this is a stroke of luck," David mused. "Looks like we found your cousin, kid." Now that David was looking at Chris again, he was struck by how similar the two boys looked. Same messy black hair, same height, same jaw structure. They could've been brothers instead of cousins, they certainly looked enough alike.

"What are all those screams?" the nurse Julia whispered, her voice shaking.

"Uh.." David tried to think of something to say that wouldn't horrify her.

Danny meanwhile was pushing past her to Chris's bedside. Chris's condition seemed completely unchanged. He looked like he was simply fast asleep. The nurse looked at Danny in shock, but seemed to be too preoccupied by the distant screams to stop him as he scanned Chris's body, pulling back the blanket, lifting his arms, like he was searching for something.

"Bingo," he said quietly, his hands closing around Chris's inert wrists. He pulled them up to eye level, examining them closely. David didn't see anything out of the ordinary on Chris's skin there, but he leaned in closer, peering over Danny's shoulder.. And he saw that where Danny's hands closed around Chris's wrists, there was a full inch of space between their skin. Chris's wrists were just hovering there in Danny's hands. Like there was some kind of invisible cuffs around Chris's wrist which Danny was actually holding onto. _What the.._

"Damn it," Danny muttered softly, focusing very intently on Chris's wrists. He seemed to be very subtly pulling on them, pulling on whatever invisible thing was there, but whatever he was trying to accomplish didn't seem to be working.

The screams suddenly reached a new level of volume, accompanied by a huge shake in the building. _Here we go again, _David thought dryly. Danny's shoulders tensed and Chris's wrists fell suddenly from his grasp, landing limply on the bed.

He stepped back, looking at Chris uncertainly, like he was calculating a quick decision.

And then, just when David thought Danny couldn't surprise him any more than he already had, he blurted out, "I have to go."

David had barely registered that when Danny was shoving past him, rushing out of the open door.

"Hey, WAIT!" What on Earth was he talking about? David sprinted out of the door, but when he looked frantically both ways down the hall Danny had already disappeared. How was he already gone? Was he a freaking Olympic runner?

David didn't have much time to dwell on that because suddenly that wall of sewage smell was assaulting him, along with anther spectacular shake of the building's foundation. This could not be a good sign. He was proved right when the purple slime monster reared its ugly body at the corner at the end of the hallway, its bubbling mass roiling around the corner like a wave of ghost jelly.

Well, shit.

David retreated back into the room, inwardly thinking that Danny had somehow known this thing was coming. That's why he had bolted. What a freaking jerk. Cowardly, confusing, mysterious jerk.

He slammed the wooden door closed, wondering wildly what to do. Hoping that ghost passed this room by. Hoping that Phantom was coming back. Where the hell did he go anyway?

The nurse Julia was huddled in the corner, her arms drawn over her chest protectively. She looked like she would have folded in on herself till she disappeared if she could.

And then the door shook behind him. He backed away in horror, joining Julia in the corner, wishing he had never come into work today as the purple goo began to ooze _through the door – _and he reminded himself that this was a freaking ghost, so of course it was oozing through the door. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. This was it, then. That ghost was going to absorb them or something, digest them and spit up their bones. They were going to die. It shrieked at them, that same disgusting shriek David had heard during the first attack. It made his stomach turn over in disgust.

Long tendrils of ooze were reaching out, slithering through the air in the room, dripping onto the floor, searching, searching, blindly it seemed as they wiggled back and forth. David gasped as they fell on the edge of Chris's bed, and he lunged forward protectively in an attempt to haul the comatose body away from the ghost. But as he tugged on Chris, the slimy purple tentacles shot out and closed around Chris's wrists, hovering there an inch away the same way Danny's had. And then the tendrils snapped back, letting Chris's arms fall back to his sides. And there was something silver in the tentacles' grasp, two things actually, round and reflective, but it was being absorbed into the ghost's body before David could really see what the creature was holding.

David thought he heard a disembodied voice say "_Yes!" _ – but that didn't make any sense – and then there was another shriek and the ghost was advancing on them full speed. David closed his eyes then, fully expecting to die.

But for the thousandth time that night, he was surprised.

A green light suddenly flashed in the room and the ghost was squealing again, but this time in pain. Phantom materialized in front of David, facing the ghost with two orbs of glowing ectoplasm hovering around his hands. "Got what you came looking for, did you?" Phantom growled at the ghost.

The ghost didn't seem interested in conversation. It gave another ear-splitting roar and thrust its gooey tentacles out at Phantom, but he fried them all with well-aimed blasts of green energy. He sent one directly at the main mass leaking through the door, and the door splintered to pieces, sending the ghost heaving backwards into the hallway.

Phantom paused to look at David and Julia with concern. "You guys alright?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, fine," David breathed. He was about to say 'Took you long enough' when Chris suddenly stirred next to him, and then abruptly sat up, looking around himself in shock.

Would there be no end to the night's surprises?

Phantom looked over at Chris triumphantly, relief spreading across his face. The purple mass was slinking toward the door again, but Phantom quickly shot out a wall of ice, sealing the door and earning them a moment of respite, before flying swiftly to Chris's bedside.

"Phantom?" Chris said in total confusion. "What- what happened?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Phantom replied hurriedly, glancing at the wall of ice where the creature was furiously pounding away at the other side. David could see it trying to phase through the ice but it shrieked as it tried this, its tentacles freezing solid halfway through. "Why did this ghost attack you down at the campus? Why is it trying to find you?"

Chris looked bewildered and lost. "I don't know man, one second I'm just sitting there chilling and the next second this thing is just on top of me! It kept muttering 'Daniel Fenton' I think but I don't know who the hell that is – that's not my name! It put these things on my wrists but I got away and ran to the hospital – I don't remember anything else after that."

Phantom's facial expression turned dark quickly. "_Oh_. Okay, okay I think I'm starting to understand. You _do _look just like m- you look just like him. I think the ghost must have mistaken you for someone else."

"No _duh," _Chris yelled as the wall of ice at the door shattered into pieces.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?" Phantom shouted as he sent a powerful charge of ectoplasm flying at the creature that was attempting to barrel through the shattered fragments of ice. It shrieked and tentacles lunged forward again, shooting out toward Phantom's arms. David glimpsed those round metal objects again, the ones it had retrieved from Chris. It was trying to get them on Phantom now? The creature no longer seemed interested in Chris in the slightest way – Phantom was on the receiving end of the ghost's full fury.

And it wasn't defense.. it was offense.

So was this purple ghost after Phantom then? No, it was after someone named "Daniel Fenton" Chris had said. The ghost had mistaken Chris for him. So who was the guy? Why was the ghost after him? Funny, it seemed that David's night of horror was being plagued by Daniel after Daniel after Daniel. So far three of them had him mystified.

He knew he should be focusing on escaping this mess but he couldn't help but feel like all the puzzle pieces were there in front of him and that if he could fit them together the right way he would finally understand what was happening.

Phantom easily dodged the wandering purple tentacles trying to slap the silver cuffs on his wrists, and severed them with a slice of ice, sending them splashing to the floor. He landed on the ground and picked up the two silver cuffs, which were now splattered with purple slime. "These for me? You really shouldn't have."

He was answered by a deafening screech and a renewed level of attack. But Phantom reared back with a massive ball of green light and let it fly, sending the ghost reeling backwards to the other side of the hallway, and he flew through the door after it, sending streak after streak of green light into it's purple body. David leaned out the doorway despite himself, his eyes drawn to the fight with deadly curiosity.

To David's shock, Phantom turned to David and shoved the goo covered handcuffs – bracelet things – whatever the hell they were – into David's arms. "Hold onto these," Phantom commanded earnestly. "I can't fight while I'm holding them. Don't let him snatch them from you."

Before David could think of a reply Phantom was generating a shield around the two of them, blocking another onslaught of writhing purple tentacles.

_"Daannyy.. Phaantoom." _Its voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard – it was the first time David had heard the ghost say anything that wasn't mindless screaming. It was terrifying.

"Who sent you?" Phantom growled back, dissipating his green glowing shield to freeze several thick, reaching tentacles solid.

"_Phaantooom!" _it cried again, it's voice as riotous and disharmonious as a bad radio connection.

"I said who _sent_ you? Or what, can you only say my name? Is that the only word you know?" Phantom attempted to grab a tentacle as it flew at him, but the gelatinous form didn't hold under his grasp, and it squished in his hand and oozed down his arm. "Okay, now that's just disgusting," he said, trying to shake it off his white glove.

The thing bubbled itself up like it was trying to look intimidating. "_Waalkeerr," _it said, and David noticed that a purple tendril was slowly creeping across the floor towards him, had almost reached his foot. He stamped on it in a panic, smearing the purple goo across the white tile. It was trying to get the handcuffs stealthily, but David wouldn't hear of it.

Phantom flew forward, blasting a hole the size of a door into the front of the creature. But still it immediately began regenerating. "Of course," Phantom was saying, quietly, like he was talking to himself, not the ghost. "Should have known Walker was behind this – I mean handcuffs that put you to sleep? A jello monster that smells like the inside of an outhouse? That was really the best he could do?" Blast after blast, and the ghost still kept regenerating. David kept stomping on tentacles that reached toward him but more just replaced them.

David clenched the handcuffs tightly in his arms, wondering how Phantom was planning to take out a ghost that could heal itself so easily. What did he usually do with ghosts anyway? Didn't he suck them up or something? Into something small – he'd seen him do it in person before, once at a ghost attack in Sears at the mall. He'd been there shopping when a massive ghost with a flaming green Mohawk tore through the store chasing Phantom. He'd watched the fight from behind a rack of clothes, watched as Phantom sucked up the massive ghost in a flash of blue light into a tiny metal container that looked kind of like – wait, like a thermos? A _thermos?_

It was like another impossible puzzle piece, dangling before him tantalizingly. He felt he was so close to an answer to all this and yet so far away.

David was wondering why Phantom wasn't sucking this ghost up now, what was stopping him from doing so, and his brain supplied the answer in the form of a recent memory. An image of a badly busted thermos, dug up from the rubble.

_"It broke."_

But – that couldn't have been _Phantom's _ghost thermos… could it? Was it?

What was the connection between all of these things? Between the dog tag boy who had disappeared, this white-haired ghost in front of him, and the mysterious third party named Daniel Fenton? There was something there that David _almost _had his finger on when two loud sets of footsteps sounded behind him.

"Danny!" It was two voices that had spoken at once, one male and one female.

David wheeled around and saw two strangers. A short black guy in pajamas that looked like he had literally just rolled out of bed, and a girl at his side with long black hair pulled back in a messy last-minute kind of deal. The thing that struck him most about the two newcomers was that neither of them seemed scared at all, which was a rare sight during a ghost attack. The second thing that he noticed, was that in the pajama-clad man's hand was a thermos.

Phantom wheeled around and caught sight of the two people, and his face lit up with a broad smile. It was odd to see someone smile while fending off an onslaught of purple oozing tentacles that were screaming.

"Boy am I glad to see you guys," he called, sincerity ringing in his voice. "You brought it right?"

"Of course dude, catch!" Pajama guy tossed the thermos through the air and Phantom snatched it easily, turning it immediately on the purple beast. A blast of bright blue light seemed to surround the ghost, and its shrieks of anger turned to shrieks of fear as it condensed in on itself and spiraled away into the beam of light, draining into Phantom's outstretched thermos. He capped it and at once the halls were empty.

David's ears were ringing. He fell backwards against the wall, suddenly immensely tired. He let the cuffs drop out of his hands onto the floor.

The two strangers were rushing past David toward Phantom, grabbing him by the shoulders as he touched down onto the tile.

"You okay?" he heard the girl saying at the same time as the guy asked "What happened?"

"I'm fine," Phantom answered. "A little beat up but no more than usual. And it was one of Walker's goons. He mistook this other guy for me, and slapped these cuffs on him that were meant for me. Then the ghost took off after the guy when he ran away. Ended up here. Guess that guy checked himself into the ER and then went comatose because of those cuffs – good thing I heard the ghost muttering 'sleeep sleeep' while he put the cuffs on that guy or I might've never figured it out. What's with ghosts and shouting out their plans anyway? And I thought _Technus _was bad." Phantom chuckled but the girl hit him on the shoulder.

"It's not funny," she chided.

"Anyway we need to suck up _all _the purple goo," Phantom continued. "I'm not making that mistake again…"

"Uh… who is that by the way?" The man in pajamas seemed to have finally noticed David, who had slumped to the floor, leaning his head back against the wall.

"Oh uh…" Phantom drifted past his friends and dropped down to eye-level with David. He picked up the cuffs from the floor in front of him. "Thanks for holding onto these," he said, giving David a half-smile.

David looked Phantom straight in the eye, squinting. There was a mottled bruise under his left eye, a long half-healed cut running down the side of his neck, half covered by his suit. "Yeah.. no problem," he replied numbly. The gears in his brain were whirring at phenomenal speed.

Then Phantom's friends were at his side, each grabbing an arm to help him up. He didn't know he needed it until they were there. He hadn't realized how bone-tired this whole ordeal had left him. "To answer your question," he said, looking at pajama-man, "I'm Dr. Benson."

Pajama-man groaned and stepped back, while the girl rolled her eyes. "Sorry, he's kind of afraid of doctors," she said apologetically. "Don't be so rude, Tucker. And I'm Sam," she said, reaching out to shake his hand.

And like that, the last puzzle piece fell into place with a satisfying click.

_"Jeez, how am I going to explain these blood stains to Sam…"_

_"Sam- Sam just calm down…"_

_"Sorry, heh. It was just my girlfriend…_ _She'll be coming to meet me."_

Sam.

He took her hand, but his eyes widened in sudden comprehension, and his gaze drifted over to Phantom's face, who was looking from Sam to David to Sam again, like Sam had just said something very damning.

The pajama-man, or Tucker, seemed to have missed the silent exchange. He piped up with, "We'd really better go suck up the last pieces of that ghost like you said, Danny."

"Right," Danny replied, still staring queerly at David. That painfully familiar 'deer in the headlights' look. It wasn't the first time tonight he had seen it.

God, it was so simple. So simple! The solution to the mystery was always the simplest one, the one you would never ever think of.

And then the three of them were walking away, leaving David there gaping after them. Sucking up the smears of purple goo left down the white tile like streaks of smelly paint.

"Wait! Wait hold on," David managed to say, jogging after them. The three turned to him questioningly. Danny looked like he was going to throw up. "Uh.. there's this patient of mine who ran off before that purple ghost attacked. He was still in pretty bad shape. If you see him can you send him my way?" Danny Phantom's eyebrows furrowed. He could practically see the wheels turning in his head. David really hoped he was right. He was _sure _he was right. But for good measure, to not give himself away, he added, "He's a tall black haired guy wearing a green polo. Just tell him I'm looking for him."

"Yeah," Phantom answered slowly. "Yeah we'll tell him."

After the three had left, Julia and Chris finally emerged from room 188, looking vaguely hysterical. Once David was able to convince them the danger was truly gone, they left down the hallway to regroup with the rest of the hospital staff. David knew he should join them and help to restore order, but he returned to room 188 and sat down on the bed to wait. He hoped he wasn't waiting in vain.

But it didn't take long.

After about twenty minutes, the black-haired Danny appeared at the door, his head peering around the corner into the room uncertainly.

Three Daniels. But there was really only one Daniel, wasn't there?

"So you wanted your shirt back, huh? And here I thought it was a gift." Danny joked stepping into the room, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He was joking, but his expression didn't match his lighthearted tone. David smiled at him warmly, hoping to erase the cornered look that hung on Danny's face.

"You know," he began, "You really shouldn't lie to doctors. It's like lying to your parents – we _always _know."

"No they don't," he said laughing, "And lie about what?" he said indignantly. "I didn't lie to you."

"About your last name," David shrugged, "Which I'm guessing is Fenton. And about Chris, who isn't related to you. I even asked him before he left. He didn't know who 'Danny Foley' was."

"Uhh.." Danny took a hesitant step backwards toward the door. He looked like he was going to bolt any minute. "There's a very good explanation for all of this. Just give me a second to think of it."

David stood up from the bed. He noticed that the smaller cuts on Danny's arms had all but disappeared. The bruise under his eye was half the size it had been when they'd pulled him out of the rubble, half the intensity of purple-green color. "Luckily for you, I already thought of it. But I didn't ask you to come here so I could point a big finger at you, Danny. I.. I just wanted to thank you, I suppose."

"Thank me?" His voice was faint.

"Yes. Thank you. For the splendid and riveting mystery. And.. for protecting my hospital."

Danny was still staring at him open-mouthed, like a kid who'd just been told Santa wasn't real.

"And I wanted to assure you," David continued, "That the data I took regarding the man with the mysterious dog tag will not be entered into our system. Besides myself there was only one other doctor who saw it, and saw the evidence of his vital signs. That record was.. ahem, it was _lost, _during the ghost attack. And the man we found under the rubble disappeared amidst all the confusion. What a mystifying thing, don't you think? I wonder if he was ever here at all. Too bad we never learned his name."

Danny squinted at him, allowing a small smile to creep onto his face. "Yeah. That is rather mystifying."

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, and a tension that had been there all night sort of faded away.

David chuckled. "You can just keep that shirt by the way. It's covered in ghost goop now anyway. I'm certain my wife would force me to toss it."

Danny laughed in return. When he laughed his eyes laughed too. Somehow even though he was covered in cuts and bruises, the kid managed to look completely relaxed and carefree when he was laughing. "Thanks. I uh, I'd better get going, Dr. Benson. My friends are waiting for me outside."

"You can call me David," he said good-naturedly. "Somehow I don't think I was ever really your doctor."

"Heh.. yeah." That sheepish look again. "Hey by the way… Do you think that dog tag was a stupid idea?"

That threw him. Was Danny really asking his opinion on that? "What do you mean?"

"Well, my sister gave it to me. She insisted I wear it in case I was ever found with.. with a really bad injury. Unconscious or something. She didn't want doctors to accidentally make things worse by mistaking my normal body functions for problems."

David mulled that over. "You know, that's a really good question. I suppose I don't know what I would have thought about your vitals and your green blood if that dog tag hadn't been there. I think your sister sounds pretty smart. It's a dangerous secret you've got there, but you really don't want doctors trying to remove that green blood from you if they found you like I did, do you?"

"Ectoplasm," Danny interjected.

"What?"

He laughed. "It's ectoplasm, not green blood."

"Right…"

Danny seemed amused at David's reaction. "Sorry doc. I know it's a lot to take in. And.. are you saying I should keep the dog tag?"

David shrugged. "Better to be safe than sorry, I always say."

That seemed to satisfy Danny. "Alright. I'll keep it."

As he turned to leave, David couldn't help adding one last thought. "Danny, if you ever find yourself in the hospital again.. just ask for me, okay? No matter what you're in for, just demand to see me until they give in."

Another smile lit up Danny's face. "Will do, David. That's.. that is strangely reassuring."

He turned towards the hallway again, hesitated, and turned back to David. "I don't feel like walking out," he said bluntly, "And since you already figured it out… you wanna see something cool? I feel like you deserve it after tonight."

"Something cool?" David repeated. What could he possibly mean?

Danny stepped back in the room and a ring of blinding blue light appeared around his waist, splitting and spreading across his body. David stared, mesmerized. Where it passed over him, Danny's clothes were replaces with familiar black fabric, a stylized D came into view on his chest, it passed over his face and feet, leaving thick-soled white boots and messy white hair. The piercing blue light fizzled and faded, leaving only that faint glow that always hung about Danny Phantom.

_Oh_.

David had figured it out, but that hadn't prepared him for the actual display of the evidence. It was a bit shell-shocking. He must have looked it because Danny flew forward and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry doc, it freaks everyone out the first time." It was the same voice, only filtered and tinny, like he was speaking through a can-on-a-string telephone. Like all ghost voices sound. But under this one was that distinctly human voice, Danny's voice. It was freaky.

"I'll see you around," he said, drifting toward the wall. "Though, you know, hopefully not _soon. _I mean, no offense but I try to avoid the inside of hospitals at all costs." And then he vanished through the wall, leaving David to his thoughts.

When he finally rejoined the hospital staff, no one asked about his mystery patient. It wasn't until the next day when some of the nurses came to him, asking if what they'd heard about the patient with green blood was true. He laughed, asking if they believed every crazy rumor about ghosts that they heard. Will looked at him strangely for days after he'd insisted that he misread all the data for the mystery patient's vital signs. Insisted the green blood had been spilled _on _the kid, and wasn't coming out of him.

He asked incredulously, "Well what about that dog tag though?"

"Oh that? That was just the kid's idea of a joke. Wasn't very funny, was it?"


	4. Author's Note

Author's Note:

There's now a sequel to this story, titled "Check-Ups."

:)


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